Light glitch

[peakish]

Hello everyone.

 

I recently got the urge to map a Thief-level of my own, downloaded the latest release of DarkRadiant and set out to create a test map.

 

I have however run into a weird problem with a light that seem to "clip" through a solid brush. The light in question is a torch (light_torchflame_moving) and the problem can be seen in these screenshots:

 

Glitch 1

Glitch 2

 

The light sort of passes through the window frame. I have tried to investigate if there's some space between the brushes somewhere but this doesn't seem to be the case:

 

Editor shot

 

 

I guess it could make sense if D3 lights originates from a volume and not from a point, but as far as I know that isn't the case? Or have I missed some obvious answer to my problem? Anyway, if anyone could clear this up I would be grateful.

 

 

 

And while I'm posting I might as well ask about this thing; how does D3 count how many lights are hitting a triangle? I have a total of four lights in my testing area (including one ambient), which according to r_showlightcount all are hitting this area:

 

Light count 1

Light count 2

 

In game it looks like this, respectively:

 

In game 1

In game 2

 

I have split the floor, ceiling and walls between the rooms (they are back to back) and even made some space between the brushes in the ceiling, but the results are still as such. Is this something I should be able to fix?

 

Any help will be highly appreciated.

[Crispy]

Perhaps the window frame (or parts of it) are set non-shadow-casting?

 

Good start on the map BTW.

[Komag]

Looks like a good start. You'll probably want to use cylider patches for those bars versus square brushes.

[jdude]

Problem one: Caused by the use of caulk or the absence of a face on a model or brush. To fix the problem use a shadow brush for models or remove the caulk texture from the brush which is causing the issue.

Problem two: Could be caused by the lights being to large, check their sized in the editor to see if they overlap.

[peakish]

Perhaps the window frame (or parts of it) are set non-shadow-casting?

 

Good start on the map BTW.

 

Heh, as it happens the part of the frame in question WAS set to no-shadows, but correcting that didn't do anything Thanks!

 

Looks like a good start. You'll probably want to use cylider patches for those bars versus square brushes.

 

Thank you. I'll think about exchanging them with cylinders, but I kinda like the "home fashioned" style of square sticks.

 

Problem one: Caused by the use of caulk or the absence of a face on a model or brush. To fix the problem use a shadow brush for models or remove the caulk texture from the brush which is causing the issue.

Problem two: Could be caused by the lights being to large, check their sized in the editor to see if they overlap.

 

I think that solved it, thanks! I had no caulk applied (none att all yet) but dividing the wall brush into two and applying the texture common/shadow on one face did it.

 

As for problem 2, yes there's pretty much overlap over the walls. Is this a problem I should solve? Personally, I get an acceptable framerate as it is right now (on a C2D 1.80ghz with a GF7900GS) but I wouldn't want to start working with bad mapping habits right off the bat.

 

 

Oh, and I got some more shots of my map as it's expanded quite a bit since my last post. Feel free to comment on them, I'm here to improve and don't think they deserve a whole thread for themselves.

 

Interior shot 1, or 'My "great" looking wall beams are in the shade'

Interior shot 2

Peek shot

Exterior gate shot

Getting the curved path to look half good was hard but great learning

 

 

Also, I forgot this in my first post and couldn't find an edit button for it so I'll just say it now:

 

Wonderful work on the mod so far, Dark Mod Team! Projects as well done as this gives me a fuzzy feeling in my chest!

[OrbWeaver]

As for problem 2, yes there's pretty much overlap over the walls. Is this a problem I should solve? Personally, I get an acceptable framerate as it is right now (on a C2D 1.80ghz with a GF7900GS) but I wouldn't want to start working with bad mapping habits right off the bat.

 

Don't waste too much of your mapping time worrying about light counts (unless they are insane), splitting brushes in order to reduce a lightcount from 3 to 2 won't make an atom of difference unless you are playing on an ancient graphics card and the affected triangles are very large.

 

Optimisation tips are here: http://www.modwiki.net/wiki/Optimising_maps . I guess I should edit that article to make it clear just how unimportant light count optimisations are when compared with shadow counts and visportalling.

[peakish]

Don't waste too much of your mapping time worrying about light counts (unless they are insane), splitting brushes in order to reduce a lightcount from 3 to 2 won't make an atom of difference unless you are playing on an ancient graphics card and the affected triangles are very large.

 

Optimisation tips are here: http://www.modwiki.net/wiki/Optimising_maps . I guess I should edit that article to make it clear just how unimportant light count optimisations are when compared with shadow counts and visportalling.

 

Okay, I'll try to keep that in mind. Thanks!